I totally agree. It's difficult when writing a review (I never even considered that mine were really reviews, but always thought of them as 'essays' dissecting the book - and intended for people who have read the book) to strike the right balance. It's a bit of a case of 'one man's meat is another man's poison' as some people like details while others just want a rough flavour of the book. As Walter Raleigh said, I usually read the reviews because I want to hear what other people have thought about a book I've read, rather than to find out if I fancy reading it.Fiona1986 wrote:I agree it's difficult to strike the right balance sometimes. Often various points you really want to make have to be left out if you don't want to give away something crucial.
I think it's quite hard to write about a book without revealing a good portion of the plot. I can understand not wanting to know 'who dunit' but what about a book like 'Mr Galliano's Circus' and the books that followed it? Do we want to know that Jimmy joins the circus, or that Lucky the dog gets stolen, or that the circus starts to break up in the final book? (sorry if these are spoilers! ). 'who dunit' is easy to avoid...but surely every aspect of a book is a spoiler?